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Letters to the Editor

Week ending Wednesday, 22 February, 2012

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We will not publish any material which we consider to be defamatory

1-day summit not a good investment
Bring in competitor airlines
Traditional titles are ‘family formations’
Put NZ super back on the table
Wrong motive
Sand mining should be banned
Pointed questions on CISNOC accounts
Pole dancing, what’s next?
Internet issues ‘authentic’
Out with the old, in with the new
Is the ‘new way’ really necessary at Punanga Nui?
Call for progress report on super
Illusionary misconstruction

Dear Editor,

The planned one day youth summit to address suicide in my view is a knee-jerk reaction to the situation rather than a strategic approach for the long haul.

I strongly support and share the views expressed by Mereana Taikoko. It was also sad to see that a person who has dedicated her time in this specialised area of mental health problems was not even considered to be on this so-called government committee.

What government should have done is get all youth organisation leaders to develop programmes to address this issue and set criteria to access the approved $30,000.

I applaud the Ministry of Education for taking on the initiative but I would have thought that this initiative should have been shared with the different religious denominations that are providing sessions in the secondary schools without cost or alternatively through this grant so that the programme can be sustained for the long haul.

The financial support by government is tremendously appreciated but only applying it to a one day summit is not good investment.

Strategic Youth Leader

(Name and address supplied)

Dear Editor,

I read in your front page story of Saturday 18 February 2012 that the subsidy paid to Air New Zealand from the Cook Islands taxpayers has risen to $12.5million, to cover losses on the Los Angeles and Sydney flights.

I wonder if anyone has looked at the amount of profit Air NZ make from the Auckland to Rarotonga flights? Could Air NZ not accept a loss on the US and/or Australia leg, if it more than makes up for it on the regular flights between Auckland and Rarotonga? Can’t we make flying the LA and Sydney routes a condition of being allowed to fly the more lucrative route?

Operating in and out of Rarotonga should be a “package deal” where airlines agree to take the good with the bad.

If Air NZ threatens to drop the US route unless Cook Islands subsidises the flight, why can we not end our relationship with Air NZ, and give the extra flights to competitors. (I know, no good for some, no more Koru Club).

Yes, thankfully, these days Air NZ does have competitors in the Pacific.

Has Government discussed, or considered discussing, with Virgin Australia and Air Pacific, for example, if perhaps they would like to pick up the direct routes to LA and Sydney? And in return receive a greater share of the flights into Rarotonga from Auckland, which I am assuming is the most profitable sector.

Both competitor airlines already service these cities anyway so perhaps a Rarotonga stopover (Sydney-Rar-Los Angeles, Auckland-Rar-Los Angeles or Nadi-Rarotonga-Los Angeles) may be worth putting on the table for these rival companies, instead of giving in to Air NZ’s demands for subsidies?

While we are at it, let’s include in the negotiations that the airlines must collect the departure tax, and put an end to this rather dictatorial attitude of Air NZ refusing to collect that tax, and the tourists leaving with a last negative opinion as they pay their $55 per person on the way out.

Kelvin Passfield

Editor: The government and tourism authorities who negotiated the Air Zealand deal are invited to answer these questions, and while they’re at it to explain how the subsidy works.

“Our traditional titles are “family formations” and not “institutions” like the papaa’s titles.” 12021928

Dear Editor,

I was at an Ariki title family meeting last night here in Auckland. A woman, who spoke, quoted extracts from a letter by Mr Joseph Ka, which she said was published in your newspaper. Everything she said aroused my interest to know more and learn what Mr Ka wrote.

I vividly recalled my grandfather teach me too that our ancestors never had ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ in “ancient times” and these so-called ariki titles are western manufactured, promoted by the missionaries to engage family leaders to support the missionary efforts.

I took no interest in his counsels and now I regret for not learning them for reference today.

The woman said that many people she knows and was with in Rarotonga when the letter came out all applauded what Mr Ka had “correctly” wrote because their parents and grand parents had also taught them too that our traditional titles are “family formations” and not “institutions” like the papaa’s titles.

Although Mr Ka is well known in our Cook Islands community here in Auckland, I had great difficulties reaching him because he is a very private and independent person. He told me he wrote the letter while he was there in Rarotonga and the original copy of that letter is held on a CD belonging to a family member there. He thought the letter was published “probably about the early part of the second half of last year”.

I would love to have a copy of that letter for my record and reference and would be most grateful if you would please, let me have a copy. Your assistance would be deeply appreciated.

Hakaoro Hakaoro

Mangere, Tamaki Makau Rau

Aotearoa

Editor: Mr Ka’s letter can be viewed in the archive section of this website. It is possible that this link will take you to the letter you refer to: Never had ariki

Dear Editor,

At the risk of becoming tediously repetitive, I must say that many deserving golden oldies will be dismayed by the front page news yesterday that the NZ super portability issue is off the table indefinitely.

I personally know of several who are quite distressed, anticipating an unwanted change of lifestyle to mope around in NZ for five years waiting to qualify for what is their right.

While Mr McCully’s government supports the Cooks in other areas, they seem to have overlooked the fact that if our qualified senior citizens cannot collect their pensions here, they will continue to be uprooted from their homes and families in their waning years to return to NZ for five years to become eligible, thereby exacerbating the problem of population drift.

Furthermore, if the pension was collectible here, the money would be spent locally to benefit our economy, and the present five-year imposition would no longer apply, thus relieving the NZ government of the social and financial burden of dole payouts, health care etc to elderly potential recipients – a win-win situation for both countries.

Despite the enormous red herring of blaming the Christchurch earthquakes as an excuse to take the issue off the table, NZ already provides considerable financial aid to the Cooks, so why not modify the format by including NZ super as part of the overall annual package?

(Provided that the money be remitted to the recipients’ bank accounts – this would keep a fair portion of aid money out of the hands of local politicians who might feel inclined to use it to boost their egos by hosting expensive gabfests such as the impending Pacific Islands Forum...)

So this is a cry from the heart, when we ask that the super issue be put back on the table. If it is not, we must conclude that the NZ government is reneging on its obligations to its own senior citizens.

Les Priest

For NZ Superannuation Lobby Group

Dear Editor,

Congratulations to Pa Ariki for the night market initiative at your palace grounds on Thursday evening.

The response was positive from those vendors and the locals especially have shown appreciation by the vast turn out. You have made your ‘pu’ara o Takitumu’ proud and hoping, it will carry on.

And oh, just a word of advice, please don’t ever allow the Business Trade & Investment Board to come close to your initiative as they will definitely kill it.

One classic example is the Ngatangiia night market that is now defunct.

As a state owned enterprise, BTIB is getting themselves involved in these community initiatives just to capitalise on it i.e. increased vendor fees and ensuring that a portion of it goes as revenue for them. This is their motive and they are like real sharks, I must admit.

It is sad in a way and I am just wondering how many of those on the BTIB staff actually are feeding pigs, have taro patch or kumara plantations, and whether they feel the same ‘roiroi’ and pain families have to go through to ensure they have enough supply for their stall at the market. I don’t think that they ever stick their hands in the soil or clean the smelly pig pen.

With the forthcoming Leap Year night market, as a vendor you for one have to worry about recovering your $50 vendor fee and thereafter is your profit for the day. How short sighted is BTIB using the Punanga Nui market as a tourist feature. Tourists come to the market and buy only one product and it’s not a bag of oranges but just one orange. Not a bag of tomatoes but one tomato.

The market will never work for tourists but it’s the locals patronising the food stalls.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they are finding every way to get into the popular Napa Friday night market? Piltz, make them crawl to you.

With this one motive of BTIB, they shouldn’t have gone into having ownership of the Punanga Nui market because one day it will fail. To the landowners of the Punanga Nui market, just open your eye’s and see what BTIB is doing to the market. They are capitalising the sweat of the mamas and papas to generate revenue to their annual budget.

Aere ko i te rima o kotou i roto i te ‘one

(Name and address supplied)

The Betela sand mine tempted villagers to dump their junk. 12021624

Dear Editor,

I write about the article regarding the Betela land that was sand mined with the permission of the owners or lessees (not told which party) with the gaping hole then being a target for illegal dumping of rubbish.

From the story, it seems that the National Environment Service has instructed the contractors ‘to cease operations and secure the property from further dumping’.

As far as I could see, NES has done very well with their instructions and for the neighbouring landowners to complain that the service has missed the point was quite surprising.

Their concerns about pollution to the lagoon are valid, but surely it is the responsibility of the landowner or lessee to take remedial action. After all, it was not the NES who dumped the rubbish, nor does the service own or lease the land.

Sand mining should be banned, and the landowners or lessee  liable for the costs of taking preventative action to shore up the neighbouring lands as well as to take measures to prevent others from dumping their junk in the resultant pit.

If the land had not been mined, no doubt for a tidy sum of money, then there would not have been a pit in which the villagers could be tempted to dump their junk.

Anti Sandmining

(Name and address supplied)

Dear Editor,

The following letter poses a number of questions for the CISNOC treasurer, Dan O’Brien, to answer. It is acknowledged that the current financial crisis at CISNOC happened before his appointment and thus, he has no culpability for the current mess.

That said, the sports codes and indeed the long suffering taxpayer (who are now underwriting CISNOC), are entitled to have questions answered about the culture of extravagance at CISNOC, misguided priorities and the question of the missing Olympic money.

As treasurer with no stain against his name for this mess, he is best placed to answer these questions:

Dan, recent accounts publicly circulated suggest that $4,000 was expended in 2011 on Koru Club memberships. Can you confirm that this is the case and if so, who received these?

As treasurer, do you believe that given the small size of CISNOC and budgetary demands, Koru Club memberships are an extravagant and wasteful use of the operational budget? If you had been treasurer at the time, would you have approved this?

Recent accounts also record that $5,000 was spent on the President’s accommodation in Noumea. Were these funds reimbursed by the SPG organising committee or anyone else, or is this a cost that was bourne by CISNOC?

If it was borne by CISNOC, do you agree that this was an extravagant and wasteful use of CISNOC funds and demonstrated a warped sense of priorities by the President and Board who authorised this? If you had been treasurer at the time, would you have approved this?

You advised all the codes in December last year that $40,000 Olympic monies belonging to the Olympic codes have been “misappropriated”. Can you advise the person(s) who authorised the movement of these funds from the account and where did these funds go?

As the funds belonged to the Olympic codes, not CISNOC, do you agree that the movement and expenditure of these funds by CISNOC amounted to theft or an unlawful conversion of funds requiring investigation by the Police? If not, why not?

The Insider

(Name and address supplied)

Editor: Dan O’Brien has been asked for a response.

Dear Mr Editor,

Just watching pole dancing being advertised on TV and to be introduced into our country and on a public stage for the first time as far as I know causes me concern and reason to comment.

A half naked woman doing acrobatic moves up and down the pole and in between her legs and crutch is more of an erotic, pornographic and seductive move than dancing to entertain.

What shall be next? Strip dancing? Gay Club? Prostitution?

Where are the censorship laws of this country that watch out and place some form of control over these foreign and inappropriate forms of entertainment creeping into our country? This erotic form of entertainment should be put to a stop immediately.

Bishop Tutai Pere

Dear Editor,

I am writing out of concern that the article in your Wednesday edition titled ‘Internet speed issues perceived’ may cause additional problems for the people of the Cook Islands.

It would appear that Telecom Cook Islands (TCI) are attempting to blame (correct) perceptions of poor DSL service on the user and their systems. This is downright Orwellian.

We in the industry would very much like to know which “independent IT provider” Telecom spoke to on Friday, because those of us in the industry know full well what is happening and it is obvious to those who “speak Geek”.

The current problem of slow internet connections has nothing to do with satellite bandwidth or “speed”.  It is rather the inability of TCI to correctly resolve requests with their DNS (Domain Name Server).

For example, when someone types www.stuff.co.nz, the DNS locates the IP (internet protocol) address and connects the two machines for data traffic.  This is the root cause of recent “slow-downs”, delays, and blank web pages. It is also why some sites will open at full speed and others may require several attempts.

This is clearly a problem within Telecom, and has virtually nothing to do with the end user’s PC, router, software, etc. Recommending people “fiddle” with their equipment over a problem TCI is not admitting to is beyond careless, and is almost certain to cause additional difficulties. In particular “nailed up” (persistent) connections are affected most often, so people using Skype or playing Facebook games, etc. will often see connection “bumping” which may to the uninitiated appear to be speed issues.

Since March of last year TCI has suffered other significant problems on a regular basis. For several months when users were automatically disconnected each night (at approximately 2am) for billing, they were unable to log back in for several hours. This process normally takes under 15 seconds, but the problem prevented customers from utilising their broadband for long stretches. Every day for many days, connections would drop out and remain off for long stretches. To this day no mention publicly has been made of the nature of the problem by TCI or even if it has been resolved.

Additionally in the past month they have suffered significant problems with the handling of email. Several customers have been told their mailboxes were “corrupted” by “too much mail” and would need to be rebuilt. This is ridiculous. Mailboxes, when full, will by their design simply reject incoming traffic, not collapse and corrupt unless acted upon by an outside agent. Providing false explanations of problems to the technically illiterate is not an acceptable practice. It unfortunately is far too common.

Certainly bandwidth or “speed” issues may be affected by multiple users on a single DSL connection, as well as heavy traffic periods, such as the morning office rush. But by and large, this is not a common problem in the home or in small businesses. While TCI is correct when they said “speed” is not the problem, what they left unsaid is THERE ARE PROBLEMS and it is on their end. Shame on them for using the public’s lack of expertise to obfuscate TCI’s troubles.

We encourage the public to always get a second opinion when dealing with IT issues. What we don’t want is people spending their hard earned money on unneeded IT work, even if it would financially benefit those of us in the industry.

There may not be “speed” issues, but there are issues and they aren’t just “perceived”.They are authentic and they are unacceptable in the modern marketplace. Especially when we have no other choice but Telecom Cook Islands.

You can’t fool all of us, we speak Geek too...

(Name and address supplied)

Editor: Telecom has been asked to comment on the questions and claims in this letter, and the response will be published when it is received.

Dear Editor,

This is from an observer from the public and a recreational fisherman. Over the last few years I have noticed that things have slightly changed in the Cook Islands within the fishing community and one point I would like to bring out is that I’ve observed there is a new generation of fisherman coming up and actually working hard enough to keep living from fishing.

I am very disappointed to see that these guys are being shafted instead of being encouraged. We need our young and upcoming fisherman to be encouraged as they are already up against these government authorised Chinese commercial fishing vessels that are currently raping and pillaging our oceans at this very moment.

As I understand also there has been an issue about how fish should be caught around the FAD or Fishing Aggregation Devise which has been placed out to sustain the fishing industry such as charter fishing, recreational fishing but most importantly to help sustain the local fisherman which use the FADs to catch fish to support their livelihood.

I would like to shed some light about these fisherman who are being looked down on and their techniques of fishing are being made to stop. What’s going on?

Our local fishermen interested in the trade have nothing else, this is all they have, this is their JOB! We should be stepping back and letting the energetic and hard working fishermen do what they have to do to survive.

We are fisherman and we should all respect techniques and style and not have rules in place to decide how the local fisherman should fish around the FAD. We are basically telling them they can have no access to the fish and in turn, have no living.

We should be promoting new styles and techniques and we should encourage these fisherman as they sell their fish to the population of Rarotonga.

Personally I myself enjoy purchasing fresh tuna from the local fishermen down in Avatiu harbour such as Pupuke, Dick Marsters and the upcoming young, Paku and others, and not get this canned product with an expiry date. Let’s help our fishermen catch more fish instead of making it harder for them.

Fishing is our birthright, we pass this down from generation to generation and everyday someone discovers a new style to catch his fish. Let’s move forward from this. Just what is our island coming to?

I just want to send this to all our fishermen – keep your heads up and keep fishing for the Cook Islands. Go Local!

Local fish consumer

(Name and address supplied)

Dear Editor,

Could someone please help me? My grandfather and grandmother, 69 and 75 years respectively, are actively going to the Punanga Nui Market every Saturday to sell their local produce to the many that frequent the markets.

They were recently told that they were no longer allowed to sell off the back of their truck, that they were to unload their produce and park their truck in the $2 parking area, or to find a parking spot.

Does that mean then that they are to provide their own table to sell off, or is the management of the market going to provide a table, at a cost? Are they expected to carry their stuff to where their truck is parked, or do they wait until after 1pm when there is no one at the market before they can leave, even after selling all their produce early? (Usually they arrive at 6am and are sold out by 8am).

I am just wondering, I mean I could help them unload and load, but they prefer to think of themselves as independent from me, that they are out there making their own income from their hard work, that they don’t need to rely on me; this is their chance to say, ‘Yes, we are old but we can still earn a buck.’

So having this ‘new way’ – is it really necessary, or is it all just a rumour on the wind?

Just Wondering

Arorangi

(Name and address supplied)

Editor: BTIB chief executive officer Terry Rangi responds

Vendors who sell produce have two options: (1) they can either sell from their vehicle, in which case they will need to park on the main road side of the market lane in a designated area or (2) they can sell from the sea side of the market lane. If they sell on the sea side they will need to park elsewhere as the area immediately behind there will be a loading zone only from this Saturday onwards. We encourage our mama and papa to sell from their truck and a space can be found for them in the vehicle selling area.

A full response from BTIB and Punanga Nui Market manager Elmah McBirney can be read at Changes to create space at market

Dear Editor,

We hope our PM can find time during Mr McCully’s whirlwind visit to remind him of the statement the latter made in the CINews dated 14 May 2011, quote:

“He [Mr McCully] applauded the Cook Islands government’s move to change its immigration policy to extend the Kiwi visa to three months and the Kiwi retiree visa to 12.

That legislative change, he said, complements the transfer of the New Zealand superannuation scheme to the Cook Islands. McCully pledged that the superannuation issue will be ‘resolved’ within ‘the next couple of months’.”

That was nine months ago, a reasonable gestation period one would expect for the birth of portability of the NZ super scheme to those in the Cooks (NZ expats and locals) who have earned it by virtue of their 20 years or more working and paying taxes in NZ.

We are now entering the 19th year of lobbying on this issue, and recent letters in these columns requesting updates from our PM have been ignored. We have also been constantly repelled over the years by the intransigent mindset of NZ bureaucrats and politicians of all stripes (except for Mr McCully and Winston Peters). We now therefore humbly ask Mr McCully, since he alone, as a NZ government MP, recognises the justice of our cause – to please enlighten the  ‘Lost Tribe’ as to what progress, if any, is being made to resolve this long-standing issue once and for all?

Our government has changed the immigration policy to benefit NZ citizens – the ball is still in NZ’s court to honour their part of the bargain.

Les Priest

For NZ Superannuation Group

Dear Editor,

I admired the Public Service Commissioner’s use of descriptive language in the recent article containing several of his quotes on the current and predicted future state of public service. I particularly enjoyed: “...reveals an illusionary misconstruction of realities in the public service”. I don’t know anything about the matter to which he was reacting and make no judgments concerning it or the substance of the quotation. The language itself is appealing for sure though.

Steve

Indiana, USA

(Name and address supplied)

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